


As Tall As Lions - Red Queen's Race

by deathwailart



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Bonding, Confessions, F/M, Families of Choice, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-14
Updated: 2011-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 15:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Completed version of the wip found in the previous entry. Written for a prompt on plurk of against what and until when do I keep on fighting? Title from the band of the same name with other lion references all the way through. Red Queen's Race is from Alice in Wonderland and is basically about running constantly just to remain in the same place.</p>
<p>There's some bad language in this, a little bit of violence and it's 2888 words long. Characters are Griffin and Nova.</p>
    </blockquote>





	As Tall As Lions - Red Queen's Race

**Author's Note:**

> Completed version of the wip found in the previous entry. Written for a prompt on plurk of against what and until when do I keep on fighting? Title from the band of the same name with other lion references all the way through. Red Queen's Race is from Alice in Wonderland and is basically about running constantly just to remain in the same place.
> 
> There's some bad language in this, a little bit of violence and it's 2888 words long. Characters are Griffin and Nova.

And she knows that the little ones look at her and Griffin and think that they are tall as lions and just as fierce. And most of the time, that's true but right now she is worn out and weary because the whole damn world is pushing against her and it's taking all of her energy to just keep moving so she can stay in the same place instead of being forced back. She can't even tell Griffin because they decided back when this all started that his worries would be the little ones so they had one surrogate parent they could always rely on. Father of the pride. She's the hunter, the one who keeps them safe, Griffin stepping in if need be. Normally, she is strong enough, the magic coursing through her able to keep the whole world at bay but lately...lately it's all enough to make her want to scream out her frustration to the starry skies, no light pollution here in the woods in their hidden home. She looks out the kitchen window into the dark night and she can pick out the still bare branches. It was a harsh winter, thick frost on the ground and snow that trapped them and had them relying on the vegetable stores and her hunting prowess to get them through; Griffin's had to work fast to grow the new vegetables with his magic but they have more variety again now and that means the children are happier. But now the smell of damp from outdoors pervades the house thanks to heavy rains that keep falling, turning the dirt into a mud that threatens to suck her boots clean off her feet if she ventures out towards the edges of the boundary they have marked out. She's starting to resent them, trapped in this house that feels so small even with the spells. The same faces always relying on her and when did she consent to becoming a den mother to this little band of children? She knows that they need teaching and training but she isn't either. There isn't enough gentleness in her. She wants to meet up with everyone else again and to get back to the fight but they've all had to go to ground until the skies and tides change and turn in their direction once more.

She's a fighter. She doesn't know what to do with herself. She fought because it was what she knew all her life. How to stand up on her own two feet; she didn't even have family when she joined up with the resistance so she doesn't have all their reasons to keep going. It's just the fight. The one thing she can do without worrying that she's going to screw it all up because children? Children pick up on these nasty messy little things about you. Like how you treat your partner. She and Griffin fight in front of them even if he hates it. They snap and snarl and she storms out and then comes back to say sorry in private, shoving him to his side of the bed and crawling in after, lips to his shoulder. The kids don't see that. And children are too perceptive and she's sure some of them are frightened of her and her silences and the way she snaps because she knows her expectations are unrealistic but they need to survive. If they get into a situation, she has to know that they can hold their own. But she can remembers being little and hearing murmured and not-so-murmured conversations and arguments through too thin walls about how she was holding her parents back, how they always had to stop and consider her safety and her needs and her limitations because she was never strong enough, fast enough or whatever else for them. She knows how bitter resentment feels when you swallow it, hot and heavy and salty. The one time she was strong enough was after she watched them burned to ashes in front of her, something breaking and propelling her forward.

It was the day she learned true fear, not for herself but for others. Hers was cast aside and she became who she is.

But no, tonight she has to keep pretending everything is going to be okay and that she's going to be fine until whenever they can pick up with the resistance. So she puts on her serene face for dinner with this ragtag group she and Griffin have taken responsibility for. Dinner, or any mealtime, is sacred, all of them around the table and passing plates and bowls but it reminds her of other meals, when information was traded instead of the incessant nattering of high voices talking about what they learned today. It's hard to imagine that there are people who would choose this life. At dinner, she and Griffin switch roles effectively with him being the stubborn nag, telling them to clear their plates because they need to be healthy and strong whereas she is happy to turn a blind eye to 'dropped' items and other foods being hidden under napkins. It's good for them, or so Griffin says, to have a semblance of normality and it's just not worth the fight these days to remind him that they're not normal and that they never will be. Still, dinner is sacred and she sits and manages smiles and lets something of her softer side through although in this family, she isn't surprised that the kids call her dad and Griffin mum. She isn't good with tears and comfort. That's Griffin's role. He's the one to pick them up and rock them and shush them, drying eyes as he cleans up skinned knees. It's only when they just want an ear and frank advice that they seek her out or go with her on one of the scouting/hunting missions.

But tonight, she cannot keep the placid expression on her face at the squabbling little voices and demands and scrape of knife and fork on increasingly more worn crockery. No. She can feel it building and pitching and swelling, great waves of roiling ugliness that threatens to escape if she so much as opens her mouth and so she commits the cardinal sin of this little family.

She leaves the table.

Not one word is uttered as she sets knife and fork down, pushes back and away from the table with the quietest screech of wood on wood and sets it in carefully, breathing steadily through her nose as she walks in measured steps to the door where she hauls on her jacket and swaps the soft soled shoes she wears indoors for her old boots that have seen so many better days with their coating of mud and Lord knows what else and their knotted and near crumbling laces. She doesn't even let the door bang shut when she exits and for a moment she stands perfectly still on the front step, just listening and breathing. There's the murmur of everyone else on the other side of the door, Griffin's voice a deep mumble and the wind whistling through the trees, the odd snap and rustle of the little things in bushes that forage at night now that the birds are safely asleep in nests save for the hunting pair of owls that claim this patch as their own, hooting back and forth, back and forth. She thinks that maybe, if she were meant for this, that it would be enough, a moment of respite but it's not and she doesn't go tearing through the woods but there's a _pace_ to her stride that lengthens it but instead of the anger dissipating it keeps massing, rising up from that ugly part of her, threatening to choke her and when she deems that she's a safe enough distance from the house (or so she tells herself, it's more that her legs suddenly fail her and threaten to send her sprawling into the mud) that she collapses against a tree, fingers digging into old mossy bark until some of the nails break and bend back and she screams. She screams it out, all the rage and frustration and worry and exhaustion and all that hateful, awful bile that's always churning away in her, something that seeded and took root and just grew the entirety of her life with this never ending fight.

When Griffin approaches, she doesn't hear him or feel him and that should frighten her. Because there is always Griffin prickling along the edges of her senses just enough to make the little hairs all stand on end. But she's too worn to do anything. She doesn't even fight when he peels her from the tree and pulls her close, still warm from the house and she can feel that heat leeching from him into her as she sags. He might be saying words to her but all she does is curl her fingers into his waxed jacket and they hurt from how hard they gripped the tree and glancing back she can see the scars she's left into the trunk but it doesn't stop her.

"Nova." Eventually, she picks out her name and stops and her face hurts and her eyes burn and her throat is red raw and her nose stings and with detached horror she can see the state of his jacket where her face was pressed, snot and tears and saliva as though she's one of the _children_ and that almost makes her want to scream again but she's used it all up now. She must say as much because he's pulling her away and over to a felled tree where she allows herself to be seated, him next to her, thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder, the way they always are. Only it's backwards and she doesn't know what she's supposed to do. She has always been the one to allay his fears and to prod him into soldiering on when he's faltered.

"I can't." It's a squeak, throat protesting to being used again after the abuse it's gone through and she wipes at her face - disgusting mess that it is and she'll have to sneak in because none of them in that house can see her like this, bad enough that Griffin has - while she collects herself. "I can't do this."  
  
"Do what?"  
  
"This Griffin. This waiting and being stuck and just this whole fucking fight."  
  
"Nova..." and she knows that tone, that placating, bargaining tone and a feeble flash of ire shoots through her and propels her to her feet even as they too conspire against her.  
  
"No! I can't keep doing whatever it is that this is. What am I even fighting against anymore Griffin because it sure as hell wasn't this."  
  
"What the hell do you mean by 'this'?" Griffin's on his feet too and he can fight, just the same way she can but not with her, not like this. They fight over petty things but they have never squared off as though they're aiming to claw the others eyes out or grab them by the throat and go for the jugular.  
  
"This," she points to the house, the space between them and then throws her arms out to encompass the woods, "I don't even know what I'm fighting against anymore. When is the end going to get here?"

And she thinks that it's when her voice breaks at the end of the sentence that he gets it. He steps forward and again, she forgets just how much bigger he really is because she is pulled right against him, his hands rubbing her back as though she's crying again but there isn't anything left to force out. The tension and the fight have drained out of her and so she presses her chin to his chest so that her head can tuck right under his and breathes again, only now noticing the black spots dancing across the edges of her vision.

"We're not meant to be tame," he says and she feels it through his chest when he speaks, "we'll figure it out."  
  
"I can't keep fighting this forever," she points out. It's the point she has to drive home. "Sooner or later we need to make a choice and we'll do it together or-"  
  
"Or you'll go on your own." He sounds sad but that's always been how it is with them. She goes and sooner or later he follows after her, covers her back. "This isn't the fight you chose."  
  
"I didn't choose a fight. It's the thing I can do. The thing I won't screw up."  
  
"You're not screwing this up."  
  
"Look at those children in that house and tell me that I'm what they want!"  
  
"I won't lie and do that," but from the way he haltingly admits it, she knows that if this were one of their more normal fights, that he would lie, "but you're what they need. I know," she jabs him hard in the ribs with an aching finger, "fine, I don't know but I can guess, that this is what's had you pacing around and tossing and turning and getting out of bed at stupid hours. I don't get that because what's in that little house? That's what I wanted. That's what I fight for. That's why I work to keep our little makeshift family together because it's what I want back."

It hurts. It hurts to be reminded of what she has never had and doesn't understand herself. Mother taught her how to stand but she didn't really have a home and there's a worry that when this is all over, when this war comes to an end that she won't have a place anymore, that she won't be needed by someone and it stings and stings all the more considering that it's Griffin who is telling her that and she tries to pull away and on any other night she'd either have succeeded or he'd have let her go but he holds her tight and fast and lets her struggle all she likes but there's no escape.

"Griffin," she pitches her voice low and cracks her head off his chin hard enough for it to hurt her and have him hissing and she musters every inch of seriousness and gravity that she can, staring him down, "Let. Me. Go."  
  
He stares back steadily, face impassive and then bends so they're nose to nose. "No."  
  
"I swear to God Griffin," she begins as she starts to fight his hold again but he clamps down hard and gives her a shake.  
  
"No, you listen to me. I'm not letting you go Nova." She steps back, or tries to, anything to gain some sort of leverage even when it makes his fingers dig in deep enough that she'll have ugly purple bruises marking her.  "Would you just stop? What are you so scared of? That you're not going to be needed anymore? That you'll surplus to requirements and just left to your own devices?" If she could, she know she would recoil as though she'd been slapped because all these flaws, real and imaginary, big and small, are bad enough when she is the only one to know and catalogue them but to have them thrown back at her is a knife between her ribs and she is so stunned that she can't react further.

It falls quiet and she doesn't want to look over to the house to see if there are little faces peering out through the windows. Maybe they're all huddled off in some other room together, trying to be quiet and polite in fear of her tacking out any lingering wrath and resentment on them. She has no rebuttal for Griffin, no angry words to throw at him and he picks up on this and loosens his grip.

"I'll need you," he says, and she can feel a sob beginning, "you can believe me or not but it's the truth."

She nods and lets her head fall back to his chest. It's too hard for her to accept it right now and she needs to wash her face and sleep and to absorb all of this but right this second, this particular fight is over and there are tentative lines drawn.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow she'll deal with this but for now she wipes at her eyes, itchy and puffy, and allows herself to be lead back to the house where Griffin gets her out of her coat and her boots and then out of her clothes and into her bed and she could laugh at how she was more naked not so very long ago but she stays silent and lets him take the lead and she falls asleep first to the beat of his heart and to the concept of being _needed_ , this heady new thing she'll have to figure out over days and weeks and months. But maybe something else can take root so she'll see which one chokes the other out.

But for now, she allows herself to sleep and it's Griffin with his lips to her shoulder this time, a promise and not an apology to usher her off, securing arm a reminder and not an entrapment.


End file.
